August 1, 1862 to January 31, 1915

Many masked men broke Willie Wallace, the infamous outlaw of Harris County, Georgia, from jail in Hamilton at eight o'clock in the morning. The group of masked men rode quickly into town and disposed of guards on the roads leading to Hamilton. Ten of the masked men remained outside the sheriff's house. The men broke in through the front door of the jail and proceeded to find Wallace's...

On January 8, 1890, an intoxicated H.O. Jenkins approached J.H. McNeilly, an employee of Jenkins's distillery, with a drawn knife. McNeilly had boarded with the Jenkins's family while also working for them, and had fallen in love with Jenkins's seventeen year old daughter. The teenage girl, however, did not have reciprocal feelings for McNeilly and did not appreciate his advances. ...

"If you knew, as we do, the horror of Mahoneism, you would not begrudge us the few hours of your time which we ask," wrote Alexander McDonald to President Grover Cleveland in August 1887. McDonald affirmed his solemn belief that "the best interests of Virginia are involved in this proposed visit, and it may be the country, too." Not surprisingly, McDonald was the editor of a Democratic...

On January 9, 1890, Colonel Thomas P. Stovall closed a deal on one of the largest land transactions in the state of Georgia in recent history. His company, the Union Real Estate Trust, purchased 24,000 acres of plantation land used for cotton cultivation located in Twiggs County, Georgia. The land was not being used to its highest potential, which was a significant appeal to the Trust company. Their...

Events across the south served to reinforce the southern state legislatures efforts in pursuing segregation and separate coach laws. One such incident happened in Atlanta, Georgia. Three business men A.W. Boggs of Chicago, E.D. Gilmore of Pittsburgh, and P.E. Brady of Tiffin rode the Pullman sleeper train from New Orleans, Louisiana to Atlanta, Georgia. On the ride the lower berths filled, so...

Economic change was slow to come to the former Confederacy after the Civil War. Although railroads began to crisscross New South cities like Atlanta, dependence on an agricultural way of life made the cities of the South less likely sites of industrial development than their Northern counterparts. This impeded development was only further hindered by the outbreak of Yellow Fever in Montgomery,...

Tensions between the black and white communities of Fairview Township in Greenville County increased drastically due to the revelation of secret night-time meetings amongst the black societies. The Enterprise and Mountaineer initially talked to the white population of Fairview and it was revealed how the African-American community was holding secret meetings at varying locations; according...

On January 18, 1890, The National Economist published the political viewpoints of the strengthening Farmers' Alliance. The article indicated that Alliance leaders remained skeptical of the political system and its ability to represent all parts of the population (especially farmers). In response to the closed two party system of the time, the Alliance strove to create a third movement in accord...

On January 23, 1890, G. Walsh Shell, president of the Farmers' Convention published the widely distributed Shell Manifesto.' The Manifesto called for a convention to select candidates for state office that the Farmers' Convention would recommend to the Democrats before their party convention. The publication stressed the importance of farmers trying to influence government at...

On January 23, 1890, a small county newspaper printed in Lexington, Virginia published an article discussing the corruption of the election process with the memory of the prior year's November election fresh in the mind. The writer of the article was disgusted with the corruption of the election process, and was fed up with the continuing corruption. The congressional seats of important mining...